


Though She Be But Little, She Is Fierce

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [38]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode AU: s12e1-2 Spyfall, F/F, F/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Clara Oswald: five foot two, and extremely touchy about it.The Doctor: five foot six, and even touchier when the subject of Clara being made smaller is raised...
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Take Me To The Stars [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139201
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	Though She Be But Little, She Is Fierce

**Author's Note:**

> From allnewtpir's prompt:
> 
> _In the midst of "Spyfall", the Master hits Clara with the Tissue Compression Eliminator in front of 13._

“We’re stuck here without my…” the Doctor steals a glance at Clara, who is arching one eyebrow at her in a silent chastisement at the singular possessive plural, and corrects herself: “…our TARDIS, and we need to find our way back before…”

Before she can finish her warning, the Master strides into the room in a top hat, grinning maniacally around at the assembled visitors before announcing in a loud, booming voice that is full of his usual dramatic, pompous flair: “Ladies and gentlemen! See the incredible shrinking device! Want to be smaller, ladies? You can!”

He holds out a device and zaps a nearby woman, who immediately reduces down to the size of a matchstick and falls to the floor with a barely-audible clatter. The assembled crowds let out a stifled shriek of horror and start jostling each other in their rush to get away from the threat, pulling back in little knots and groups in a bid to escape the madman who is now blocking the only exit from the room.

“Who’s next? You, sir,” the Master beams then aims the device at the woman’s now-distraught fiancé, who is reduced to a similar size and lands on the parquet flooring beside her. The Time Lord scoops them up and holds them in the palm of his hand as if they were are toys, waving them around with gusto, and the Doctor feels a stab of loathing for him and his contemptuous attitude towards humanity. They aren’t playthings, or target practice, despite what he believes; they’re real, living, breathing beings with hopes and dreams, and they deserve better than this. The Master has always held them in contempt, and this only reinforces that to her; he doesn’t care for them beyond their capacity to be used as target practice, or bait. Beside her, she can feel Clara practically vibrating with fury, and she reaches over and takes her hand, giving it a steadying little squeeze.

“Ah, the happy couple,” the Master leers with megalomaniacal glee, then tosses the couple aside like a petulant child. The crowd jolts into nervous motion again, some of them edging for the exit, and he stamps his foot in an infantile manner, waving the device threateningly as he bellows: “Do not move! Hands on heads.”

The assembled visitors look at him with uncertainty, unsure whether the instruction is a trick. Some of them dither, their hands raising to their heads as though in slow motion, and the Doctor straightens up and takes a decisive step forwards, Clara at her side.

“Hand on heads!” he reiterates, and the visitors leap into motion as one, doing as bid and placing their hands atop their hatted heads with palpable terror, wondering whether this action might be enough to placate the murderous stranger.

“Let them go,” the Doctor says coldly, letting go of Clara’s hand in a bid to draw the Master’s attention away from her partner; it’s a symbolic gesture, rendering herself a distinct entity and offering herself up as a sacrificial lamb. “Let them go, and you can have me.”

“I’ve got you anyway,” the Master says softly, a smirk playing over his features, and then, to the Doctor’s horror, he turns his gaze to Clara. The Doctor feels her hearts stutter in her chest as his attention flicks to her companion, and she can only pray that Clara will not say or do anything especially inflammatory, although she knows that such a hope is foolish. Clara has never been one to keep her mouth shut; it’s one of the reasons why the Doctor loves her quite so much, and yet in this situation, it may well be her undoing. While Missy had undoubtedly been fond of Clara, having been the one to pick her out and lead her to the Doctor in the first place, this Master is an unknown quantity, and one who does not seem too fond of Clara, nor any of the Doctor’s friends. He wants her attention for himself, and seems unwilling to share; like a petulant child, he refuses to consider being anything less than the centre of her universe.

The Master stares Clara down, a dangerous expression on his face as he appraises her with a smirk. “Sorry,” he says icily. “I thought I gave your pitiful species an order. Hands on heads.”

“It wasn’t a very exciting order,” Clara says coolly, folding her arms with a tangible air of contempt that the Doctor both admires and loathes her for; this isn’t Missy, this isn’t someone who might consider sparing her. This is someone dangerously unknown, and trigger happy. “And this isn’t Simon Says, so I elected to ignore it.”

“Are you…” the Master gestures to her with the Tissue Compression Eliminator and Clara, to her credit, does not so much as flinch, although the Doctor does. “Are you suggesting that your species is above following the orders of a Time Lord?”

“No,” Clara shoves her hands in her pockets, and the Doctor finds herself wishing, for once, that Clara was a little more fearful of others; a little more inclined to follow orders when they were made of her. The Master has just killed two people; this is not the time to provoke him, particularly not when he’s espousing such hateful rhetoric and particularly not when she’s still floundering, trying to get the measure of him and what he’s capable of. “It’s just me that thinks that, and it’s just your orders.”

“I think that’s disrespectful,” the Master closes his eyes and shakes his head sadly in a manner that the Doctor knows is entirely for her benefit; it’s melodramatic, hammed up, and thoroughly theatrical. “So, so disrespectful. It’s a shame you maladapted, mis-evolved apes never learnt your rightful place in the universe, isn’t it?”

“It’s a shame you never learnt how to talk to women with respect, isn’t it?” Clara counters, but the Master only continues to shake his head with over-exaggerated sadness, his expression sombre.

“Such a shame,” he murmurs, removing his hat and holding it to his chest in a terrible, perverse gesture of respect, although for what, the Doctor struggles to understand. “Such a terrible… terrible… shame.”

His eyes snap open and he presses the button on his device before either of them can react. The Doctor finds herself frozen in place as she watches Clara shrink down, down, down, until she’s no bigger than her littlest finger, and she feels a sudden, lurching sense of horror. As Clara falls to the floor in what seems like slow motion, the Master snatches the tiny figurine out of mid-air, and throws it as hard as he can into the corner of the room.

“Whoops,” he says with a wide, childish grin of glee, holding his hands up and splaying his fingers as though he were being held at gunpoint. “Well, she’s learnt her place now, hasn’t she? Under my boot – perhaps literally. She’d make a lovely crunching sound, I’m sure,” he giggles, the sound high-pitched and grating on the Doctor’s nerves, and hatred wells in the Doctor’s chest; hatred and disgust. “When I kill them, Doctor, it gives me a little buzz. Right here, in the hearts. It’s like… how would I describe it? It’s like… it’s like knowing I’m in the right place, doing what I was made for.”

The Doctor just stares at him, unable to process exactly what has just happened. She wants to look away from him; wants to rush over to where he’d thrown her companion’s lifeless figurine with such callousness, but she knows that any such action will only invoke further wrath and she can’t – mustn’t – risk the lives of everyone else in the room for the sake of her own grief. She might be disposable, but there’s thirty humans here, all of them looking to her as their salvation, and she knows that without her they won’t make it out alive. In her chest, her hearts are pounding so fast that she wonders how she’s still standing, and there’s a sensation of nausea gnawing away in the pit of her stomach as her brain begins to comprehend the magnitude of what he has done.

Clara’s dead.

The inescapable truth of it hits her like a freight train; Clara is dead, and this time it’s damningly final. After all they’ve been through and all they’ve survived; after their agonised separation and its accompanying enforced amnesia; after their joyous reunion and the murmured confessions of love and commitment that followed; now Clara is gone. There’s no hope of redemption; no possibility for a second – or third – chance at things. She’s dead, and the Doctor is, at last, alone. She might have the team, if she can work out a strategy to return to the present and save them from a fiery, terrible death aboard Barton’s plane, but they don’t know her in the same way that Clara did; haven’t made the same sacrifices; aren’t interwoven into her personal history in a million different times and places in the same way Clara had been.

The agony of losing someone who is so much a part of her in all-consuming, and as the Doctor stares the Master down, her chest rising and falling rapidly, she feels anger begin to course through her, white-hot and insidious, as he smirks at her. ‘Whoops,’ he’d said, as though killing Clara had been some kind of sick joke to him, although she supposes that it most likely is – his sense of humour has always been warped, and he considers murder as humorous as others might find stand-up comedy, or slapstick. He has her full attention now; he’s no longer competing with someone else for her affections, although why he thinks that murdering her partner is a promising way to win her over is anyone’s guess.

“Well,” he says, and his voice seems to be coming from a very long way away. She focuses on him with some difficulty, watching as he replaces his top hat atop his head, rocks back on his heels and takes hold of his lapels, letting out an exaggerated breath and then grinning as he muses: “Who knew that she could get even smaller, and even deader?”

The Doctor reacts instinctively; she crosses the space between them and seizes hold of the front of his jacket, pushing him back into the nearest wall, her other arm pressing down across his throat as she mentally runs through all of the ways she could make him suffer for what he’s done. Killing him would be too kind, she reasons; he deserves a singular, enduring agony that continues for as long as she can possibly achieve, and she’s caught on this thought, running through ideas, when she realises he’s laughing. Despite her forearm crushing his windpipe, he’s laughing, and she knows then that all lingering traces of Missy have been exorcised from his being; all of the goodness that had been so painstakingly learned is gone.

“Well,” he says breathlessly, before closing his eyes momentarily and then continuing in a more normal tone: “Who knew you were into choking people? You’ve kept that one quiet, haven’t you, Doctor? I mean, if it wasn’t for the respiratory bypass, I’d be as dead as your pet. All the more reason that we Time Lords are superior. All of the fun, none of the risk.”

“Shut up,” the Doctor growls, slamming him back into the wall and feeling a stab of satisfaction as his head clunks into the wooden panelling. “How could you do that? How…”

“Well, I wasn’t going to share you,” he pouts then, his lip quivering with carefully-choreographed finesse. “I don’t want to be competing against some half-witted little creatures for your attention, do I? I’ve got rid of your lovely little pets, and now I’ve got rid of your… what was it you called her?” he smirks. “‘Partner.’ It’s disgusting, you know. Going native with the locals. It’s a good thing you can’t cross-breed, or-”

The Doctor slams him into the wall again, a scream bubbling from her throat as she does so. It’s a cry of rage and sadness and fury and loathing; a sound that cuts through the silence of the room and echoes back to her tenfold. The Master is still laughing, and she wants him to stop; wants to stop him; so she uses her fists now, as humans would; uses her fists and her knuckles and her nails to slap and punch and scratch at him, screaming obscenities in Gallifreyan as she does so, and she no longer cares about her self-control; no longer cares what people think of her; because there’s no point to any of it anymore. Her partner is dead at her best friend’s hand, and the pain of it all is so all-consuming that she wants to regenerate; wants to change; wants to be spared the physical agony of it all, and she’s wondering, wildly, what the best way to do so would be when hands catch at the back of her jacket, pulling her backwards and away from the Master.

The hands pull her away and her best friend slumps down the wall to the floor, his face blossoming into bruises, his nose dripping blood, and yet still he’s laughing; still he mocks her, and she tries to start forwards, already anticipating swinging her boot into him, but strong arms encircle her and drag her away, away, away; out of the room and into the gloomy corridor beyond. She fights and twists each step of the way, clawing at the arms that are holding onto her with such strength, spitting and snarling like a wildcat. It’s only when they’re a reasonable distance away from the Master that the arms release her, and the Doctor twists away at once, only to freeze as she takes in the sight before her.

“Ow,” Clara says idly, rubbing her arms and raising an eyebrow at her with bemusement. “What the hell was all that about? I’ve met feral cats who aren’t that vicious.”

“I…” the Doctor breathes, stepping forward and loathing herself as Clara takes a reflexive step back, raising her hands to her chest in a self-defensive stance. “You’re…”

She reaches out a hand and Clara hesitates before taking it in her own, giving it an apprehensive squeeze.

“You’re not dead,” the Doctor says softly, her eyes wide with awe. “But…”

“Of course I’m not dead,” Clara rolls her eyes. “Unkillable Clara, remember?”

“But he… the Tissue Compression…”

“I remember something hitting me, and then I woke up behind the steam gun. Definitely not dead, definitely not tiny.”

The Doctor pulls her into an embrace before Clara can protest, clinging to her so tightly that it elicits a small ‘ow’ from her companion.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to her companion’s forehead. “I really thought I’d lost you… I thought he’d…”

“I’m much harder to get rid of than that,” Clara notes, wrapping her arms around her and giving a reassuring squeeze. “Now, I’m happy that you’re happy that I’m not dead, but could we maybe move? Before your ex-best mate recovers enough from that assault to come after us?”

“Right,” the Doctor says with a grimace. “Good plan.”

* * *

The Doctor props her head up on her hand, looking across the bed to where Clara is half-asleep beside her. They’re safe now – the Earth, the team, Clara – and she allows herself to exhale properly at last, before scooting over to her partner and placing a gentle hand on her cheek, skimming her thumb over the skin there. Clara makes a small sound of contentment and leans into the touch, and the Doctor smiles a sad smile to herself, moving over to lay directly beside her and wrapping an arm around her partner’s waist.

“Mm,” Clara mumbles, nuzzling into the embrace and pressing a kiss to the Doctor’s shoulder. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Not dead.”

“Very much not dead,” the Doctor whispers, kissing her forehead with the utmost tenderness and tucking a strand of hair behind Clara’s ear. “Please stay like that.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I love you.”

“I love you,” Clara breathes, closing her eyes and resting her head on the Doctor’s chest with a contented sigh. “So much. Just next time… please check if I’m definitely dead before beating anyone up.”

“There’s not going to be a next time.”

“Good,” Clara yawns. “That’s probably for the best. Can’t have you going feral again. You’ll get a reputation.”


End file.
